San Francisco Center for the Book

A thorough introduction to tooling: lines, both free-hand regular, hand-tooled titles, creative tooling and blocked labels.

 This new class combines several tooling techniques that Dominic has taught at the Center over the years, into a five-day extravaganza of traditional and creative approaches.

The first part of the class will concentrate on traditional hand tooling. We’ll begin with cloth-covered panels and a one-line wheel. Using both metallic foils and carbon paper, we will spend time producing simple tooled lines, beginning with free-style lines until the technique is learned, then progressing to formal lines using a guide. Then we’ll be ready to move onto a leather-covered panel, where we will execute a formal gold tooled ‘diaper’ pattern.

Following this will be the hand-titled spines: working on prepared leather pieces attached to a special spine tooling block, we will learn how to execute three kinds of title: in blind, carbon and gold, using various jigs devised by Dominic which ensure accuracy and efficiency.

This next part of the class will introduce you to Dominic’s creative approach to free-from gold tooling, which he has spent many years perfecting. This is done with his adapted tool which allows you to ‘draw’ in gold.  We will all make our own tool by shaping a piece of brass which is sunk into a wooden handle. We’ll then create a design and learn how to transfer it to the leather using simple jigs and templates, which control the tooling as the completed design takes shape.

Finally, we will concentrate on blocking labels using the Kwikprint. Learning to use this machine is relatively easy but there are a host of tips to learn about how to set up the machine, arrange the type correctly and produce really good crisp labels.

SFCB's Windgate Scholarship Fund is dedicated to providing need-based financial support to individuals interested in learning bookbinding, letterpress printing, and related book arts. Click here to apply.

Prerequisite(s):
None

Materials to bring:
All tools and materials will be provided. 

About the Instructor:
Dominic Riley (he/him) is an internationally renowned bookbinder, artist, lecturer and teacher. He has his bindery in England, from where he travels across the UK teaching and lecturing. He spends part of the year teaching in San Francisco and across the USA. His work is mostly restoration and Design Binding, for which he has won many prizes in the Designer Bookbinders competition. He was elected a Fellow of DB in 2008 and is Patron of the New Zealand Association of Book Crafts. His bindings are in collections worldwide, including the British Library, the Grolier Club in New York and the San Francisco Public Library. In 2013 he won first prize, the Sir Paul Getty Award, in the International Bookbinding Competition. Dominic is a past President of the Society of Bookbinders. Dominic and Michael Burke are co-founders of Book Camp, an immersive residential bookbinding experience which aims to teach new generations of binders.

He has taught masterclasses in the USA, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, at the Centro del Bel Libro in Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and Canada.